Joseph Gordon-Levitt isn't worried about audiences understanding Looper. Rachel Weisz talks about playing one of the witches in Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful. Darren Aronofsky and Russell Crowe are all but official for Noah. Plus new Prometheus images!

Spoilers from here on out!

Top image from The Hunger Games.

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The Hunger Games

Director Gary Ross offers some final, overarching thoughts on the film on the eve of its release, starting with how those titular Hunger Games themselves appeal both to the audiences, both the fictional one in the movie itself and the real one watching it on the screen:

I think that one of the brilliant things in the premise and in the book is that there is a lurid fascination, like watching auto accidents. One feels kind of morbidly compelled to watch. That's the power of the games themselves and the games are used as an instrument of political control to get people to kind of complicitly participate. I think that one of the things that Jenn [Lawrence] realizes is, "I'm going to refuse to play this game." Her act of defiance comes from her own sense of personal morality, her own personal ethics and the way that those have evolved. I think that that's really, really interesting in the piece itself.

He also talks the use of CGI:

Yeah. There's a ton of CG that you probably don't notice. When you're in the Seam, where she lives, a lot of the mines and other backgrounds are created in a computer. In the chariot sequence, literally all we had was a road. That entire city and all that stuff is created in a computer. We had real crowds that we then cloned or tiled. I don't really believe in using digital people. But all the buildings and everything that you see is created. But my feeling about CG is that it's like music. You shouldn't notice it. It should support the film. So we worked very, very hard in creating CG that you don't notice.

And how the movie's score figures into its storytelling:

I want you to lean forward into the frame. I don't want to push you back. I don't want you to passively receive the movie. I want you to engage in the movie. The score needs to be kind of transparent enough that you can engage what's going on on the screen. I don't want to be bombastic and hammer you with a, quote, "movie moment." Then you feel, "I'm in a movie," and you get an aesthetic separation from that and the intensity of the movie. My job is to pull you in and make this feel completely real all the time and never break the frame. If I was to hammer away with a repetitive orchestral theme or something like that, it would say to you that you're in a movie. I don't want you to feel like you're in a movie. I want you to feel like you're in the games.

Prometheus

[gallery 5895428] Here are some cool new images of the spaceship Prometheus and some of the ground vehicles. [/Film]

Looper

Director Rian Johnson offers a nice clean encapsulation of the premise of his upcoming time travel movie:

"A looper is a killer who works for the mob in the future. So, this mob in the future will zap somebody they don't want around back thirty years to the looper who will kill them... It's a very clean way of disposing of people."

"That was the question we got most when we were promoting 'Inception.' I think there is sort of a thing in our culture that underestimates people, that underestimates the intelligence of audiences. People are smarter than maybe we think they are and they like good movies. They like smart movies, and 'Looper' is one of them."

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

This should probably just be taken as a joke, but director Timur Bekmambetov proposes a possible link between his latest and his Night Watch series, which also features vampires: "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter can be treated as a Night Watch prequel, because it's what happened before." [Shock Till You Drop]

Snow White and the Huntsman

"She was great. She had a very strong opinion of where she wants to take this character and a real sense of justice. She needed to start off innocent and naive, but get to the point where she's a hardened warrior and will no longer bow down to the pressure of the Evil Queen. We spend a lot of time through the film with scenes and working out how to drive the story forward. Is this moving forward or digression? If it is, we have to work it out and keep tracking it, which you always do, but she certainly didn't just roll on in and throw it to the side. She was right there among it."

Noah

This supposedly won't be official until next week, but Darren Aronofsky and Russell Crowe have reportedly signed on to direct and star in Paramount and New Regency's big budget, edgy reimagining of the Noah's Ark story, featuring a screenplay by Gladiator writer John Logan. [Deadline]

Oz the Great and Powerful

Rachel Weisz discusses her role in Sam Raimi's Wizard of Oz prequel, which she doesn't even really consider a Wizard of Oz prequel:

"It's absolutely separate from the classic film. Frank L. Baum wrote ten or so volumes of the whole mythology of the Emerald City, Oz, et cetera, so this is the story of how the wizard got there. So it's pre-Dorothy. It's really nothing to do with 'The Wizard of Oz' in a sense. It's much, much earlier. It's how the wizard, James Franco, ended up in the Emerald City. In the Emerald City, there live three witches: Glinda — Michelle Williams — who is the good witch, Theodora — Mila Kunis — and myself are sisters. I'm a big sister, and we both are more on the dark side. Well, I have a magic power, which is lightning. That was the key."

"The idea about immortality as a curse, you know?. Immortality is a very difficult time in your life, if you become an immortal. If you think about that, it's impossible to be in love with anyone - you're growing, you're getting old, as a human, but not as an immortal. I think immortality could be a very lonely feeling [worth exploring]. I'm working hard on that project. We'll see if finally it's my next movie."

Doctor Who

Here's the first interview with newly announced companion Jenna-Louise Coleman.

Here's one more piece of Steven Moffat's quote from today's press conference that suggests Coleman's character won't just be a random woman off the street:

Who she's playing, how the Doctor meets her, and even where he finds her, are all part of one of the biggest mysteries the Time Lord ever encounters. Even by the Doctor's standards, this isn't your usual boy meets girl.

Moffat also made clear that the eight episodes of series seven set to air in 2013 won't be that year's only episodes: "Oh, there'll be more episodes than just those eight, but these are the ones we're making right now." [Doctor Who News Page]

One extra bit of relatively big news for the coming series — it's been revealed that the Daleks will appear in one of the first five episodes featuring Amy and Rory. Since we know the Weeping Angels will be in episode five and the third episode is the one featuring a cyborg in the Wild West, that suggests the Daleks will be in one of the three others. I'd guess episode four, but that's pure speculation on my part. [@DWMTweets]

Fringe

True Blood

Camilla Luddington, best known for playing Kate Middleton in the Lifetime movie William and Kate, has reportedly been cast in the recurring role of Claudette, described as "one of Claude's (Giles Matthey) many sisters, who gives Sookie insight into what it means to be a faerie." [Deadline]

Once Upon a Time

Here's a sneak peek for this Sunday's episode, "Hat Trick", which guest stars Captain America's Sebastian Stan as the Mad Hatter and — because I will never stop pointing this out — the Who's Roger Daltrey as a talking caterpillar.

Mockingbird Lane

Here are some details on the character of Grandpa in NBC's upcoming Munsters reboot, which British actor and comedian Eddie Izzard is reportedly set to play:

Grandpa, at least in the pilot script, is both wise and frightening. He's a vampire, a violent predator, and a Dr. Frankenstein–style assembler of patchwork body parts, but also a loving (if bizarre) guardian of his offspring.

Supernatural

Here's a sneak peek for this Friday's episode, "The Born-Again Identity."

The Vampire Diaries

Star Paul Wesley discusses what's ahead for Stefan and his relationship with Elena:

I don't think Stefan is going to, you know, go back to ripping off heads and being maniacally out of control anytime soon, but I don't know. That's one of the most important things about Stefan, that no matter how moderate he becomes and how stabilized he is, in supporting that as an actor, I always convey that sense of danger around the corner, that he could potentially bite somebody's head off at any minute. That's what makes him compelling and interesting and dynamic.

Elena witnessed him feeding. What does that mean for their relationship in the next episode?
It's just another reason to not trust him, another reason to push away from him [and] say, "God, this guy is completely out of control, and not the one for me." It brings to light the reality of their relationship, which is they've had so much darkness come between them, it's almost impossible to go back.

It's been a very, very tough season for Elena and Stefan. Are there any words of hope you can offer the fans?
The fans should definitely maintain some hope...The thing to remember is that Stefan and Elena have this love that is so strong, and it was sort of the core of Season 1 - you can't entirely disregard that. The fans should definitely be aware of the fact that Stefan and Elena are very much a possibility.